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Monday, March 3, 2014

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I love Dr. Seuss books and I have a boatload in my classroom. My students love those books too, so despite the difficulty with copyright rules, This week I want celebrate reading, Dr. Seuss, rhyming, and all things silly. It is not too late to plan your own celebrations. My ideas are generally quick, and not to tough to pull together at the last minute.

First a little history lesson. These two books are on my bookshelf at home. Have you seen them before??

You may not have heard of them...but they both belong to Theodor Geisel. Theodor Seuss Geisel, of course, is the given name of Dr. Seuss (a pen name he started using in college). He was born on March 2nd, 1904. He grew up in a time when Americans of German descent were hated and feared. He experienced the hurt that this kind of prejudice creates. He worked for a time in advertising, drew political cartoons, and of course he wrote children's stories. His first was To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. A poem he wrote after crossing the Atlantic and mimicking the rhythm of the ship. It took awhile for publisher to say yes and even then he was not an overnight success. Many of his advertising and wartime cartoon characters made another appearance in his children's books. To learn more about his life try this movie: In Search of Dr. Seuss. It is a whimsical look at his life told through his books.

We are starting our week with a truffla forest. These trees are made with foam pipe insulation (from home depot), yellow duck tape, and great big tissue paper flowers. I made the flowers with tissue paper from the card and gift wrapping section at WalMart and pipe cleaners. There is a great tutorial at Mrs. Lodge's Library. Her instructions are easy to follow and you will have a forest in no time.

I will dress up like The Cat in the Hat himself with this simple costume:

I had the hat, so black pants, black turtleneck, white oval (I had some felt) safety pinned on, a wide red bow, and look at me....not too bad. I needed some minions, little things 1 through 22. A circle of white safety pinned to their shirts and a blue wig, and you would think we stepped out of a story book.

I used blue butcher paper for the wigs. I just folded it in half, drew a line to show the kids where to stop, and added a couple of staples to stabilize the paper while my kinder kids are cutting. The folded edge is the bottom, the open edge is the hair, students cut from the open edge. When they are done cutting, I just fit it to their head and staple.

Now we need a snack...these red and white hats are quick and easy.

Having buddies to snuggle with and lots of opportunities to read make for a fun and exciting week.

I scour the thrift stores and at least once a month my husband brings me home a stack of books. Here is what he brought me Friday. They all seemed brand new or barely used.

Each day we will start our reading block putting sentences in the right order, sentences straight from the books we will be reading. Stop by my facebook page to pick up these (or just write your own on 3x5 cards or half sheets of construction paper)

There is such wisdom in the words of Dr. Seuss. Words adults can benefit from.

Here's hoping you have a Seuss-tasical week. Even if the sun is not sunny, have some good fun that is funny from Terri at KinderKapers. Don't forget to follow me on facebook to keep track of all our fun as the week progresses.